<p>Today, computer science and robotics have been highly developed. Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is widely used in mobile robot navigation, game design, and autonomous vehicles. It can be said that in the future, most scenarios where mobile robots are applied will require localization and mapping. Among them, the construction of three-dimensional(3D) maps is particularly important for environment visualization which is the focus of this research.</p> <p>In this project, the data used for visualization was collected using a vision sensor. The data collected by the vision sensor is processed by ORB-SLAM2 to generate the 3D cloud point maps of the environment. Because, there are a lot of noise in the map points cloud, filters are used to remove the noise. The generated map points are processed by the straight-through filter to cut off the points out of the specific range. Statistical filters are then used to remove sparse outlier noise. Thereafter, in order to improve the calculation efficiency and retain the necessary terrain details, a voxel filter is used for downsampling. In order to improve the composition effect, it is necessary to appropriately increase the sampling amount to increase surface smoothness. Finally, the processed map points are visualized using Octomap. The implementation utilizes the services provided by the Robot Operating System (ROS). The powerful Rviz software on the ROS platform is used. The processed map points as cloud data are published in ROS and visualized using Octomap. </p> <p>Simulation results confirm that Octomap can show the terrain details well in the 3D visualization of the environment. After the simulations, visualization experiments for two environments of different complexity are performed. The experimental results show that the approach can mitigate the influence of noise on the visualization results to a certain extent. It is shown that for static high-precision point clouds, Octomap provides a good visualization. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate the applicably of the approach to visualize 3D map points for the purpose of autonomous navigation.</p><br>

LKAB has a mineshaft trolley used for scanning mineshafts. It is suspended down into a mineshaft by wire, scanning the mineshaft on both descent and ascent using two LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) sensors and an IMU (Internal Measurement Unit) used for tracking the position. With good tracking, one could use the LiDAR scans to create a three-dimensional model of the mineshaft which could be used for monitoring, planning and visualization in the future. Tracking with IMU is very unstable since most IMUs are susceptible to disturbances and will drift over time; we strive to track the movement using monocular visual odometry instead. Visual odometry is used to track movement based on video or images. It is the process of retrieving the pose of a camera by analyzing a sequence of images from one or multiple cameras. The mineshaft trolley is also equipped with one camera which is filming the descent and ascent and we aim to use this video for tracking. We present a simple algorithm for visual odometry and test its tracking on multiple datasets being: KITTI datasets of traffic scenes accompanied by their ground truth trajectories, mineshaft data intended for the mineshaft trolley operator and self-captured data accompanied by an approximate ground truth trajectory. The algorithm is feature based, meaning that it is focused on tracking recognizable keypoints in sequent images. We compare the performance of our algortihm by tracking the different datasets using two different feature detection and description systems, ORB and SIFT. We find that our algorithm performs well on tracking the movement of the KITTI datasets using both ORB and SIFT whose largest total errors of estimated trajectories are $3.1$ m and $0.7$ m for ORB and SIFT respectively in $51.8$ m moved. This was compared to their ground truth trajectories. The tracking of the self-captured dataset shows by visual inspection that the algorithm can perform well on data which has not been as carefully captured as the KITTI datasets. We do however find that we cannot track the movement with the current data from the mineshaft. This is due to the algorithm finding too few matching features in sequent images, breaking the pose estimation of the visual odometry. We make a comparison of how ORB and SIFT finds features in the mineshaft images and find that SIFT performs better by finding more features. The mineshaft data was never intended for visual odometry and therefore it is not suitable for this purpose either. We argue that the tracking could work in the mineshaft if the visual conditions are made better by focusing on more even lighting and camera placement or if it can be combined with other sensors such as an IMU, that assist the visual odometry when it fails.

Ecologically, spiders are both predators and prey. Therefore, they must balance being aggressive enough to forage successfully, but not so aggressive that they become overly exposed to predation. Some species of spiders actively forage during clearly defined periods of the day, leading to the hypothesis that they should be less aggressive (or more defensive) during periods when they are not foraging, predicting that antipredator behaviour should be more pronounced during inactive foraging times. We tested the antipredator 'huddle response' in a nocturnal foraging orb-weaver, Larinioides cornutus, and found that, as predicted, the spiders huddled longer in the day than at night. We then conducted tests to determine whether the cycling of the response was regulated by an internal clock (circadian), and we found that huddle duration continued to cycle under constant dark (with periodicity significantly less than 24. h) as well as under constant light (periodicity nonsignificantly longer than 24. h). This work adds a novel behaviour to the list of behaviours under circadian control and also to the surprisingly short list of studies demonstrating circadian rhythm in spiders.

Visual(-Inertial) Odometry (VIO) and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) are hot topics in Computer Vision today. These technologies have various applications, including robotics, autonomous driving, and virtual reality. They may also be valuable in studying human behavior and navigation through head-mounted visual systems. A complication to SLAM and VIO systems could potentially be visual degeneration such as motion blur. This thesis attempts to evaluate the robustness to motion blur of two open-source state-of-the-art VIO and SLAM systems, namely Delayed Marginalization Visual-Inertial Odometry (DM-VIO) and ORB-SLAM3. There are no real-world benchmark datasets with varying amounts of motion blur today. Instead, a semi-synthetic dataset was created with a dynamic trajectory-based motion blurring technique on an existing dataset, TUM VI. The systems were evaluated in two sensor configurations, Monocular and Monocular-Inertial. The systems are evaluated using the Root Mean Square (RMS) of the Absolute Trajectory Error (ATE).  Based on the findings, the visual input highly influences DM-VIO, and performance decreases substantially as motion blur increases, regardless of the sensor configuration. In the Monocular setup, the performance decline significantly going from centimeter precision to decimeter. The performance is slightly improved using the Monocular-Inertial configuration. ORB-SLAM3 is unaffected by motion blur performing on centimeter precision, and there is no significant difference between the sensor configurations. Nevertheless, a stochastic behavior can be noted in ORB-SLAM3 that can cause some sequences to deviate from this. In total, ORB-SLAM3 outperforms DM-VIO on the all sequences in the semi-synthetic datasets created for this thesis. The code used in this thesis is available at GitHub https://github.com/cmannila along with forked repositories of DM-VIO and ORB-SLAM3 / Visual(-Inertial) Odometry (VIO) och Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) är av stort intresse inom datorseende (Computer Vision). Dessa system har en variation av tillämpningar såsom robotik, själv-körande bilar och VR (Virtual Reality). En ytterligare potentiell tillämpning är att integrera SLAM/VIO i huvudmonterade system, såsom glasögon, för att kunna studera beteenden och navigering hos bäraren. En komplikation till SLAM och VIO skulle kunna vara en visuell degration i det visuella systemet såsom rörelseoskärpa. Detta examensarbete försöker utvärdera robustheten mot rörelseoskärpa i två tillgängliga state-of-the-art system, DM-VIO (Delayed Marginalization Visual-Inertial Odometry) och ORB-SLAM3. Idag finns det inga tillgängliga dataset som innehåller specifikt varierande mängder rörelseoskärpa. Således, skapades ett semisyntetiskt dataset baserat på ett redan existerande, vid namn TUM VI. Detta gjordes med en dynamisk rendering av rörelseoskärpa enligt en känd rörelsebana erhållen från datasetet. Med denna teknik kunde olika mängder exponeringstid simuleras.  DM-VIO och ORB-SLAM3 utvärderades med två sensor konfigurationer, Monocular (en kamera) och Monokulär-Inertial (en kamera med Inertial Measurement Unit). Det objektiva mått som användes för att jämföra systemen var Root Mean Square av Absolute Trajectory Error i meter. Resultaten i detta arbete visar på att DM-VIO är i hög-grad beroende av den visuella signalen som används, och prestandan minskar avsevärt när rörelseoskärpan ökar, oavsett sensorkonfiguration. När enbart en kamera (Monocular) används minskar prestandan från centimeterprecision till diameter. ORB-SLAM3 påverkas inte av rörelseoskärpa och presterar med centimeterprecision för alla sekvenser. Det kan heller inte påvisas någon signifikant skillnad mellan sensorkonfigurationerna. Trots detta kan ett stokastiskt beteende i ORB-SLAM3 noteras, detta kan ha orsakat vissa sekvenser att bete sig avvikande. I helhet, ORB-SLAM3 överträffar DM-VIO på alla sekvenser i det semisyntetiska datasetet som skapats för detta arbete. Koden som använts i detta arbete finns tillgängligt på GitHub https://github.com/cmannila tillsammans med forkade repository för DM-VIO och ORB-SLAM3.

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This study investigates the feasibility and performance of SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) as a service (SLAM-as-a-Service) for outdoor augmented reality (AR) applications. Given the rapid advancements in AR technology, integrating lightweight AR glasses with real-time SLAM capabilities poses significant challenges, particularly due to the computational demands of SLAM algorithms and the limited hardware capacity of AR devices. This study proposes a scalable SLAM-as-a-Service framework that offloads intensive computational tasks to remote servers, leveraging cloud and edge computing resources. The ORB-SLAM3 algorithm, known for its robustness and real-time processing capabilities, was adapted and implemented in a service-oriented architecture. The framework was evaluated using the EuRoC dataset to benchmark processing speed, accuracy, and round trip time. The results indicate that while the proposed SLAM-as-a-Service model shows promise in handling high computational loads, several obstacles need to be addressed to achieve minimal round trip time and ensure a seamless AR experience. This thesis contributes to the development of scalable and efficient AR solutions by addressing the limitations of on device processing and highlighting the potential of cloud-based services in enhancing the performance and feasibility of AR applications in dynamic outdoor environments.

This thesis presented an overview of the development of a geolocating algorithm as part of a geoprocessor for raw satellite imagery. This algorithm was devised for and limited by the specifications of a state-of-the-art multispectral telescope designed by Aistech Space, hosted onboard the Guardian spacecraft, which will observe Earth through the visible, near infrared, and thermal infrared bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. The geolocation algorithm presented here is composed of the combination of two models. The first is a physical model, which makes use of spacecraft telemetry and external satellite-tracking data to approximate the geographical center of a sensed scene. Secondly, an optical model obtains a reference Landsat image based on the timestamp and approximated location of the sensed scene and utilizes image processing techniques to pinpoint a more precise geographical location of the sensed scene within acceptable limits. This performance was achieved in 77% of the cases considered. To conclude, a roadmap of the subsequent development topics and their relevance was laid out. / Detta examensarbete presenterar en översikt för utvecklingen av en geolokaliseringsalgoritm som en del av en geoprocessor för obearbetade satellitbilder. Algoritmen anpassades för och begränsades av specifikationerna för ett toppmodernt multispektralt teleskop designat av Aistech Space. Teleskopet kommer att finnas ombord på rymdfarkosten Guardian, där den är avsedd att observera jorden i de synliga, nära infraröda och termiska infraröda delarna av det elektromagnetiska spektrumet. Geolokaliseringsalgoritmen som presenteras i detta arbete är sammansatt av en kombination av två modeller. Den första är en fysisk modell, vilken använder sig av rymdfarkostens telemetri och extern satellitspårningsdata för att approximera det geografiska centrumet av en plats. Den andra är en optisk modell, vilken använder sig av en Landsat-referensbild baserad på tidsstämpeln och den ungefärliga positionen av platsen och använder sedan bildbehandlingstekniker för att fastställa en mer exakt geografisk position av platsen inom acceptabla gränser. Denna prestation lyckades uppnås i 77% av de övervägda fallen. Avslutningsvis lades en plan ut för de efterföljande utvecklingsämnena och deras relevans.

<p><a>It is essential for a mobile robot during autonomous navigation to be able to detect revisited places or loop closures while performing Vision Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (VSLAM). Loop closing has been identified as one of the critical data association problem when building maps. It is an efficient way to eliminate errors and improve the accuracy of the robot localization and mapping. In order to solve loop closing problem, the ORB-SLAM algorithm, a feature based simultaneous localization and mapping system that operates in real time is used. This system includes loop closing and relocalization and allows automatic initialization. </a></p> <p>In order to check the performance of the algorithm, the monocular and stereo and RGB-D cameras are used. The aim of this thesis is to show the accuracy of relocalization and loop closing process using ORB SLAM algorithm in a variety of environmental settings. The performance of relocalization and loop closing in different challenging indoor scenarios are demonstrated by conducting various experiments. Experimental results show the applicability of the approach in real time application like autonomous navigation.</p>